Noria

A noria (Arabic: ناعورة‎‎, nā‘ūra, from Syriac: ܢܥܘܪܐ‎, nā‘urā) is a machine activated by water power and used for lifting water into a small aqueduct, either for the purpose of irrigation or for the use in towns and villages. There is at least one known instance where it feeds seawater into a saltern.

The terms referring to traditional water-raising devices used in the Middle East, India, Spain and other areas are sometimes used rather loosely. The term noria is commonly used for devices using the power of moving water. For devices powered by animals, the usual term is sakia or saqiya. Other types of similar devices are grouped under the name of chain pumps. In Spain the term "noria" is used also for devices which are actually sakias.

The proper noria uses the energy derived from the flow of a river. It consists of a large, very narrow undershot water wheel whose rim is made up of a series of containers which lift water from the river to a very small aqueduct at the top of the wheel.

A sakia or saqiya differs from a noria in the way it is powered, and by the fact that it raises water out of a well or body of standing water, not a river. Sakias can have its water-scooping pots or buckets attached directly to a vertical wheel, which makes it look very much like a noria, thus the many confusions; or it can use a so-called pot-garland, a chain of pots slung over the vertical wheel which hangs down into a well which may be up to 8 m (26 ft) deep. The most primitive sakias are driven by donkeys, mules, or oxen. The animal turns a horizontal wheel, which is engaged with the vertical one, and so causes it to turn.

In Spanish an animal-driven sakia is named aceña, with the exception of the Cartagena area, where it is called a noria de sangre, or "waterwheel of blood". Another, much rarer type of sakia uses the same system, of a necklace of clay or wooden buckets, but it is driven by the wind. The wind-driven sakias in the vicinity of Cartagena, are virtually identical in appearance with the local grinding mills.

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Wikipedia